18:02:22 Okay. It'll also keep the space really clutter free, which will help with your learning and your focus, some event, what are we, what are we agreeing to I'm not sure I didn't understand what we said no problem Paula we were just doing some problem solving
18:02:39 before we began nothing, but you need to worry about adult.
18:02:46 What I would like everybody to know as we are beginning the recording has begun and you just need to consent to that. And as we get going.
18:02:56 Here's what I want you to know. You can put all sorts of things in the chat. and I can see it, and Justin can see it. And so if you have questions you have things that you want me to know about, I will not read the chat while I am teaching.
18:03:11 But when you go into some activities I will scan through the chat and I will catch up and material then so it's not a good way to interrupt me.
18:03:20 The best way to interrupt me, which I welcome, you're welcome to interrupt me is to send Justin a note and Justin can interrupt me. If you don't like doing it out loud, or you unmute yourself and you say, excuse me one moment.
18:03:33 Can I ask a question, and I say yes. Okay.
18:03:36 So those are the two ways that you can participate.
18:03:40 Um, we did send out a, an email with all of the handouts that you need the handbook. Feeling needs sheets, everything that you need you'll have the slide deck, so I'm not going to repeat things often people will say oh wait, can you just say that again.
18:03:57 No one, I don't ever remember what I just said to you'll have the recording. Three you'll have a transcript. Okay, and you'll have the slides. So you can go back and look at the replay page at any point.
18:04:11 But what I want to do this evening is begin with a slide deck, the very first part of tonight will be content delivery I'm going to talk a lot. So the very first part you're going to sort of settle in and you're going to be washed over with all sorts
18:04:27 of information.
18:04:29 the second, third of the evening will be a structured activity.
18:04:35 When we do a structured activity, I highly recommend that you go into groups of four. And some people would like to just observe the groups of four. And so there may be one or two observers, and some people will choose not to do the structured activity.
18:04:51 You have full choice about what you're up for okay you can be as participatory as you like, you can sit back and observe as much as you like, you can stay in the main session at that point so I don't want anybody on the call this evening to feel like
18:05:06 you're going to be forced to participate in any way that you're not available.
18:05:11 If you want to be lurking in the background with a fake name and observe the entire meeting you are more than welcome.
18:05:17 I will say that you will get much more out of it. If you do all of the activities and follow the instructions because it's really well designed. Okay.
18:05:29 If I say so myself. It is really well designed, you will get much more out of it if you have a pen and paper, you're taking notes, you're asking questions, you're getting into small groups.
18:05:41 You, I just think you'll learn better. So those are my recommendations for how we do this together this evening. I am not going to share my screen unless anybody on this is the other thing, there are going to be two screens of people so if you raise your
18:05:54 hand.
18:05:55 I will see you if you're right here on my screen, but if you happen to be on a different screen I won't see you. So if you're raising your hand and I'm not calling on you, it might be that I just don't have you on my screen so please feel free to ask
18:06:09 Justin to help Justin you want to just wave at everybody's everybody sees who you are. And you can also ask Eric to help us Eric Can you or Eric is also here for some support.
18:06:19 So you can ask either of them to help as well. Okay.
18:06:33 Okay, looks like we are ready.
18:06:37 We are ready to dive into this so I'm going to share my screen.
18:06:42 And everybody see that.
18:06:44 Okay.
18:06:46 So, this sets the tone for this conversation on vaccines.
18:06:53 Why do you get so defensive whenever I attack you.
18:06:57 Yes, you may. You may relate. So, we are going to work this evening on ourselves.
18:07:06 So I know that there are probably many people out there in the world that you would like to change. And I'm not going to help you change them at all except indirectly, but I am going to help you do this evening is focused on you, and have a look at who
18:07:21 is who are you bringing to the conversation.
18:07:25 And how can you bring more love, more clarity, more effectiveness, more skill fullness, more authenticity, more of your values, and how do you do that in a way that is really relational and inspiring right that's the main thing that we're going to be
18:07:43 doing this evening. And I'm hoping that we will have time for demos, after your structured small group activity the last third of our call will be me giving you scripts for situations, if you want them.
18:07:55 So if there's a specific thing that somebody has said or a particular situation where you could use some new language, we will hopefully have time for that.
18:08:05 The third part of the call this evening. So, there we go. Okay, everybody can see the screen Yes, good enough. Just give me a thumbs up if you can see it, fabulous.
18:08:15 All right, here we go.
18:08:16 We're here to practice having a new kind of conversation and because there's a whole bunch of people who signed up for this workshop that I've never met before.
18:08:24 I am going to do just a little bit of orienting material. Okay.
18:08:29 We are a community of leaders and teachers and healers and peacemakers. And some of the people in our community, think of themselves as cycle breakers I absolutely would count myself in that group it's people who are breaking cycles of addiction cycles
18:08:45 of violence cycles of abuse and boat rockers people who are wanting to rock the boat, a little bit they don't want to just go along blindly like sheep with the status quo they're asking questions they want to be critical.
18:08:58 And also our community of dreamers and visionaries, this is a community of people who take the time to think about how things could be better to envision a world that does not yet exist, and who feel inspired to develop the skills and the capacity and
18:09:15 the hot material the hot strength.
18:09:18 So they begin serving the world that they would like to be living in.
18:09:24 And we work at home we work professionally at home, personally, professionally we use these skills in all parts of our lives, quick thing there's a little bit of background noise if everybody could just double check that you're muted.
18:09:35 That would really be helpful for me just to make sure that that I don't get too distracted. So here are our intentions and agreements. We are here to learn and explore and grow and stretch, ourselves, so this is about your development.
18:09:50 Okay, this is about you, feeling into your limits your triggers, what you're doing well, what you think you could do better, where your stress zones are, and the workshop is about the process of conversation, not the content and I think we made that really
18:10:07 really clear and all of the materials but I'm just saying that again. I don't care where you stand on this issue that is not important to me. You can have whatever perspective you want.
18:10:20 I want to help you speak about your perspective with other people in a way that fosters connection, and learning and growth and thinking together, as opposed to what seems to be happening all over the place right now, which is polarization and echo chambers
18:10:37 and fragmentation and division. So I'm here to help you. It doesn't matter to me where you stand. But I want to help you have more effective conversations about the things that really matter to you.
18:10:49 Please come with a willingness to be a little bit uncomfortable and never mind about the chat because that's pretty much sold.
18:10:55 So, you are in the right place this evening if you want to dissolve barriers to understanding and connection, and you want to come back to cultural echo chambers, that nurture conformity and extremism.
18:11:08 You want to change people's hearts and minds around critical issues of the time, and you want to develop a greater willingness to listen to others. even when their ideas feel threatening.
18:11:20 Have you ever had that situation where somebody says something and your stress response system just goes up and suddenly you're triggered and you don't know how to stay grounded and in connection with them.
18:11:28 These are the moments that were really wanting to work on.
18:11:31 You want to experience less fear of confrontation. So many of us are afraid of strong emotions in our conversations, this is something that we need to get more comfortable with.
18:11:42 You want to get grounded in the face of strong emotions, whether they're coming up inside of you or outside of you, and you'd like the confidence to continue to connect, instead of what I used to do which is like withdrawal, avoid will get triggered and
18:11:57 fight. Okay, here's our agenda teaching experiential q amp a I covered that already. Here's what we're going to talk about some core skills, some internal shifts the five barriers to connection, our inner work, and then I'm hoping you leave with some
18:12:11 new scripts and some new tools so hopefully that's what you signed up for this evening.
18:12:17 For those of you who are meeting me for the very first time, I was born Can you see my cursor Do you see my little pointy cursor Okay good. I was born right here in South Africa, and then we moved to Malawi, and I did nursery school in Malawi, and then
18:12:32 we moved all the way up here to Germany and I went to elementary school in Germany. that was the first time I was expelled from school.
18:12:39 Then we went all the way back to South Africa and I did Middle School in South Africa in the early 1980s during apartheid lived in a under a state of emergency and my father was a diplomat for the South African government.
18:12:53 Then for high school we were transferred over here to Beverly Hills which was a huge culture shock. I went to marry mod Girls High School in Beverly Hills, and then I came out here to the U of M to go to university, went to the University of Minnesota
18:13:07 decided that the last place in the world that I ever wanted to end up with Minnesota so I better get out of here as quickly as I could. I got my master's degree in education and I moved promptly to Egypt in Asia, I met my first husband, we lived there
18:13:21 for a while and then he was a doctor and knee surgeon and we moved to England. We lived in England for a while I had my daughter had a few stepchildren had a very happy life until cultural differences definitely got the better of that marriage, and I
18:13:35 left and I moved to Tucson, Arizona.
18:13:38 When I was in Tucson Arizona and a little bit of an identity crisis professional crisis, this is not how I imagined My life was going to turn out here I am single mom living, you know, in a place that I never imagined I would be and one of my really good
18:13:51 friends was running a school in Bali, Indonesia, so off we flew over to Bali, Indonesia and I worked as an IB high school English teacher in Bali while I figured out the next stage of my life.
18:14:04 At that point when my daughter was five we moved all the way back here in Minneapolis. I got my doctoral degree in clinical psychology, I began doing some consulting and executive coaching and I have a private practice and I do a ton of online education
18:14:19 in nonviolent communication and positive psychology and all kinds of other things so here's where I've landed back in Minnesota the place that I originally thought I was leaving for good but now I have a house so here we are.
18:14:35 And if you want to think a little bit about what influences my work, and you may want to think about this for yourself.
18:14:42 I think of people as found poems, do you know what I found a poem is.
18:14:47 If you don't know it's like when you go through a newspaper for example or a magazine and you just clip out words that you like and then you rearrange them, words and phrases and then you rearrange them on a piece of paper and you make a new poem, out
18:15:00 of phrases that you borrowed from somewhere else. And that's very much how I see the work that I've done I feel like I have been influenced and shaped by various people and frameworks and methodologies that I've come across in my life.
18:15:14 And I've kind of put them all together and myself and a pretty integrative and multimodal way. And the big things that I drove from other ones on this sheet I won't read them all to you.
18:15:26 But this evening the one that we will probably focus on the most is the influence of nonviolent communication and the work of Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, so that's the one that is going to form the bedrock of some of the work that we're doing tonight.
18:15:39 Okay, so that gives you a little bit of a sense of who I am.
18:15:43 So why is the vaccine conversation so difficult. Well, we can probably come up with a lot of different answers to this question but number one. Everyone thinks they're right.
18:15:54 have you come across that.
18:16:12 Yes, okay. I love it by the way that you have your cameras on so that I can see your faces it's so much more fun for me when I can see you nodding or shaking your head or frowning I find it much more engaging so thank you to those of you who do have your videos on and no pressure for anybody who doesn't want to have it
18:16:15 on but.
18:16:16 So we don't have a lot of intellectual humility, we, you know, many of us.
18:16:22 Also, you know, we think we've got this thing figured out and we have the right position. And this is a pretty high stakes topic because we have lives at stake.
18:16:30 We're talking about things that can kill us so it's a life and death high stakes issue.
18:16:36 And we think we're right.
18:16:38 The second thing is we're facing a lot of confirmation bias and confirmation bias. I'm going to talk more about it later on because this is one of the big barriers, this is the misinformation barrier, but we have a tendency to give a lot of credibility
18:16:53 to information that we get from people that we think are like us.
18:16:59 And we have a tendency to dismiss and devalue information that comes from people that we don't think are like us. Okay, now that's not true for everybody across the board and painting was pretty broad strokes.
18:17:11 But we tend to be looking for confirmation of a pre existing belief.
18:17:26 And these subjects are emotionally charged, and many many people do not know how to work with strong emotions effectively what they want to do is suppress the feelings, make the feelings go away and come with data and statistics and facts and reason and
18:17:44 logic and you lose people.
18:18:02 Oh, the other thing that they do is they want to use emotion amplify it and come with so much intensity that they're going to force and bully their perspective into you, you know with with high emotion and turns everybody else off.
18:17:59 Okay, so we've got to learn what to do with our emotions differently so we're going to talk about that tonight. And of course as you all know, the more passionately we argue the more entrenched each side becomes and their stance.
18:18:12 So, I want you to take a moment and reflect.
18:18:14 This is where you can jot down a few notes on your piece of paper this is a little bit of self connection time.
18:18:20 When you think about the vaccine conversation.
18:18:26 Fill out the sentences, and I know some of you to these ahead of time but not everybody had an opportunity to do the pre work, so we're going to just do a little bit of it now.
18:18:35 I feel fear when.
18:18:38 What are the things about this conversation that bring up, fear, what are you worried about what you get scared off.
18:18:47 I feel angry when what I feel angry when I feel helpless.
18:18:57 What are the things that bring up helplessness for you.
18:19:02 Where do you tend to get self righteous.
18:19:07 Okay. Every one of us has a place where we will get self righteous.
18:19:12 And what enemy images or labels do you hold of what you perceive to be the other side.
18:19:25 And then I would just like to hear from two people. One part of this anything that you would like to share just to get a couple of voices, so that I don't feel like I'm sitting here in a room all by myself.
18:19:36 So not all of them but if there's one that you would be willing to share with me I would love to hear it.
18:19:43 And you can just raise your hand and I'll have it.
18:19:50 Yes, Melvin welcome hi and then Alice.
18:19:55 Melvin if you could unmute yourself.
18:19:57 Yes. Hi. Hi.
18:20:01 So, I feel fear, as I've been done earlier when I consider my family's health, my own mouth.
18:20:10 My country so, which includes the health of the economy of our country.
18:20:17 And I feel fear when I am struck with how anti science.
18:20:24 People seem to be willing to be.
18:20:26 Yeah. Yeah.
18:20:28 So when I hear people speaking in a really anti science way dismissing and devaluing scientific material.
18:20:36 That's one of the things that brings up a lot of fear.
18:20:38 Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that I really appreciate that. Ellis.
18:20:44 I'm going to pick the fear one too. I feel fear when someone who I trust, particularly well I'm thinking of someone who was in the medical profession, who has an opposite stance to mine.
18:21:02 So there's a fear and sort of threat.
18:21:06 Uh huh. Yes, my for my own safety. Uh huh.
18:21:10 Yep, yep, and I'm speculating so tell me if I'm getting this right or not but is the power imbalance a part of where the threat comes from for you or not.
18:21:22 Um, well if power means more x axis and understanding of the scientific part of it.
18:21:29 Then, yes. Okay.
18:21:32 Okay. Lovely. Thank you. That's really beautifully articulated. Okay, so here's what we're going to do. I am going to put you into some small breakout sessions and all I would like you to do is just say hello to two or three other people in the room.
18:21:48 Say hi, and share a little bit just like Melvin and Alice just did have anything that came up in the little reflection piece, if you're willing to share a piece of that.
18:22:01 Or you can talk about what are you finding challenging about these conversations and do you tend to move more towards fear and helplessness, or more towards anger and self righteousness.
18:22:13 Okay. That way you can just get to know a few other people we can settle in a little bit together and then when you come back. I'm going to give you a lot more content so let me just see how many people do we have here right now great we have 46.
18:22:29 So, these people are going to be the same people you go back to for the structured activities so it's important if you're willing to just get to know them and say hi so that it's not so scary when we go back to them a little later on you just have eight
18:22:45 minutes, it's very short, please share our time.
18:22:48 It's really not a long discussion.
18:22:51 And if you end up in a room alone.
18:23:08 You won't, but if you do, just stay there and I will make sure that you end up in a bigger room so let me make sure I have my timing all sorted out I'm going to give you seven minutes with a 62nd countdown, so that you you have a minute to wrap up and
18:23:09 get back okay so here you go remind us of the topic.
18:23:25 Um, introduce yourself and just share a little bit of the responses the filling in the blanks sentences and if you don't want to share at that vulnerability level, you can just share a little bit about what you're finding challenging about the conversations.
18:23:28 Yeah.
18:23:29 Okay, see you guys back soon. You just have to click Join breakout room.
18:23:39 And of course you don't have to go you can stay here, but uh please please please go because you'll get a lot out of it if you're willing.
18:30:38 People will be back in.
18:30:42 30 seconds.
18:30:46 Yay, people are coming back. Hi.
18:30:52 So we still have like 25 seconds for everybody to get here but Welcome back.
18:31:00 How was it to just chat with a few people helpful, nice to just say hi.
18:31:07 Yeah, little bit less and personally think.
18:31:13 Alright so six seconds and everybody will be back. And we may make just a couple of moves just to get everybody into groups of four for the next activity but otherwise.
18:31:25 Hi, welcome back. Here we all come. Okay, so, hopefully, it felt okay to be talking to a few other people in a small group How did that feel to people yes no Just give me a thumbs up if that was.
18:31:42 Okay, nice to just meet some people.
18:31:45 There's always you know one of the things I love, love, love about the work that I get to do is that the nicest greatest people show up for the workshop so it's always such a pleasure to be here with you.
18:31:57 Okay.
18:31:57 Okay. I'm going to share my screen again. Justin told me that was a request for presentation view we tried playing with it during your being in breakout sessions we have not figured it out.
18:32:07 We will keep working on it. You might be able to adjust things on your, your end. And if anybody has a tutorial that you want to send Justin so that we know exactly how to do whatever the request was that would be really helpful but for now, you can all
18:32:23 see the slides, yes.
18:32:26 Okay, so here comes content. Alright so we're now going to dive into content and for those of you who've worked with me before I'm setting a timer because otherwise I can go on forever.
18:32:37 As you all know, so I'm going to have a little auditory cues that I don't go on for too long. All right, there's a reason why people love listening.
18:32:46 Here's what we're doing. There is an old conversation, the habitual conversation that people are used to having and that everybody who's not on this call and who isn't studying NBC will continue to have, and tonight we're going to talk about a new conversation,
18:33:01 and it is a shift that you are being invited to make the old conversation focuses on what is wrong. What is wrong with those people. What is wrong with that research what is wrong with this policy What is wrong with that strategy.
18:33:18 Or even better. What is wrong with you, idiot, that you aren't open minded What is wrong with you, that you get so emotional What is wrong with you right we have all kinds of things What is wrong with you, all we flip it.
18:33:32 What is wrong with me, I don't know what's wrong with me I just can't engage in these things I don't have the heart for it I don't have the stamina for it.
18:33:39 You know all what is wrong with me everybody else seems to be doing one thing why does that not bother me. Right, so we have this frame.
18:33:46 This thinking frame that that sets us up for a very particular kind of conversation.
18:33:52 And when we're stuck in the, what is wrong frame.
18:33:56 We are stuck in a you versus me conversation. It's either you or it's me. Either you have to change I have to change. Either you are wrong or I am wrong and who's right and then we get stuck in these debates, where we're trying to figure out who's right
18:34:10 and who's wrong, and who needs to win and who's going to lose. And we use many many domination tools in these conversations and the domination tools have to do with trying to get power over people and force them to do what we think is right and force
18:34:26 them to see the way that we think is better. And the more that we come with power over domination tools, the more we stimulate their defensiveness, and the more resistance we get and the more we disconnect.
18:34:41 And then the next thing that you see happening in these conversations is those denial. They deny the validity of this they deny the legitimacy of something, they dismiss everything that you have to say out of hand.
18:34:53 They devalue you and your perspective, and you get dehumanized or you're doing it back to them, they become dehumanized, they become some other group, and suddenly we begin vilifying another person, another side another position.
18:35:11 When we are in that consciousness, it's very very difficult to have a high quality conversation.
18:35:19 Okay, because the rules of those conversations have to do with me against you, us against them fragmentation dualism winning competition power over, it is unpleasant for the human stress response system, people resist it.
18:35:35 They fight, they flee, they freeze, and they phone. That's what we get in the old conversation and we see it getting played out all over the place.
18:35:43 The new conversation, very first thing we do in a new conversation which is what we're here to work on this evening.
18:35:50 As we shift our central intention.
18:35:53 When you walk into these conversations. You are not coming in to show somebody how they are wrong.
18:35:59 You're not doing that.
18:36:01 You're coming in to find out how to connect with a human being in front of you. And to find a path forward, that is more likely to meet more people's needs, and you're focused on a different question.
18:36:15 The question you're focused on is what will help.
18:36:18 what is needed.
18:36:20 What is one small thing we could do that would bring us closer together. That would help us solve this problem together in this paradigm. I'm not you against me, and taking the attitude of you and me.
18:36:37 This is what I'm thinking. And what are you thinking, and when we put these two things together. What does this mean for us.
18:36:49 It is a different consciousness that you are bringing to the conversation, it is a both end consciousness. We're looking for co creative solutions. We're looking to include multiple data points.
18:37:01 We're looking to include multiple windows, through which we can see any given problem. And we're looking for ways that we can move forward to gather.
18:37:11 Okay, we do not one people, you know, resentfully submitting to our way because we know that it's going to get sabotaged on the black back end, we're not going to settle for those kinds of conversations anymore.
18:37:26 And so we learn the skills of power with.
18:37:30 And if you want the skills of power with one of the very first things that you learned to do is empower yourself.
18:37:37 And I want to offer you a metaphor and an image.
18:37:42 If you think about the old conversation as trying to be the wind you come in, gale force winds and you're going to blow and blow and blow and blow all your data and your facts and your opinions and your judgments and your criticisms and all of the shame
18:37:55 and blame tactics and the guilt and tactics and you're just blowing on to people, all of this stuff in this attempt to try and force them to change, they will wrap themselves up more tightly and hunker down.
18:38:09 And that is not the consciousness, or the energy or the skill fullness that we're going to talk about today. Today we're going to talk about what it means to come into that space and see yourself a little bit more like the sun, and you have an internal
18:38:24 engine.
18:38:25 you're bringing.
18:38:28 Once you are bringing friendly knows you are radiating from your core, a way of being in the world, where other people can relax, they can take off their jackets, they can stop resisting, they can lean in and enjoy.
18:38:47 They can feel safe and warm and known and seen, and you start cultivating openness. Okay, this is the kind of shift that we're talking about in the kind of energy you're bringing a conversation.
18:39:01 We use vision and choice two things, you have a vision of how things could be better.
18:39:06 You have a vision for health and wellbeing, you really draw on universal human needs which we'll talk about in a moment. And you make a deep commitment to honoring people's freedom to choose.
18:39:19 Okay. But you hold freedom to choose with a deep vision, and with your deep values, and then you begin massaging conversations from there and we'll talk in practical terms about how we might do that in a moment.
18:39:33 The other thing is that instead of denying and dismissing and devaluing and dehumanizing and disconnecting and diagnosing and all of these other revolting disconnecting things that we could be doing in the old conversation.
18:39:45 We get very focused and this is particularly from nonviolent communication, we get focused on for specific skills.
18:39:53 We learn how to speak and observational language, so that we're not criticizing and evaluating which stimulates defensiveness.
18:40:01 We learn what to do with feelings in the conversation. Yours and mine, and we get really skilled at surfing them in a way that includes the feelings as valid data.
18:40:14 We develop a literacy of universal human needs the intrinsic motivators that drive all of our strategies, the things that actually matter to people.
18:40:26 And we learn how to make requests, we learn how to end every interaction with questions that lead the conversation in one small step towards togetherness and towards high, high quality solutions okay and it happens all the time.
18:40:44 So that's the paradigm shift that we're serving this evening.
18:40:48 When you open a conversation whichever conversation, it is that you are wanting to open, you are going to ask us off five questions, this is your preparation.
18:40:58 What is my intention.
18:41:01 If I'm going into this conversation to change you correct you make you wrong. If that's my deep intention, I may as well have the old conversation and you're going to get the same results.
18:41:11 If you want a new conversation your intention going in, is to build a relationship with this person because they matter to you.
18:41:22 And the relationship comes before the agreement on a belief or a dogma or a worldview or a strategy.
18:41:31 We will get that.
18:41:33 But the thing that matters the most. When you open a new conversation is the human being in front of you, and a commitment to develop a loving relationship with them.
18:41:45 And if you're in the workplace, you can substitute loving for a respectful dignified warm and friendly relationship with this human okay but you will make a commitment to re humanizing people and not seeing them through the lens of those people, whatever
18:42:00 those maybe for you.
18:42:02 The second thing is you get very intentional about how you're going to use your attention.
18:42:09 What are you going to pay attention to every moment of a conversation, you could be paying attention to everything that they're saying to their content to the things that you perceive as a tax to the things that offend you to the things that are wrong.
18:42:25 And if that's what you're looking for. That's what you're going to get more off.
18:42:29 And I'm going to suggest that for the new conversation. You begin attending to how they're feeling to the story of how they came to believe what they are believing to the deep human needs that are alive for them that they are prioritizing in their decision
18:42:50 making.
18:42:53 And to what it is that they are wanting, what is the beautiful vision of a world that they think would work better than what we currently have.
18:43:02 And you begin looking and mining and attending and asking for those things. And when your attention is on that kind of data.
18:43:13 The conversation will naturally begin to transform and shift.
18:43:17 Third question.
18:43:19 Who do you want to be.
18:43:22 This is an invitation to do a little bit of an integrity check.
18:43:28 You need to, as much as you are able live into the thing that you were saying you believe in.
18:43:35 If you want people to be open minded.
18:43:39 Bring open mindedness.
18:43:41 If you want somebody to be willing to be influenced show up, willing to be influenced.
18:43:52 Bring the thing that you are wanting more of in the world.
18:43:56 So there's an integrity check of Who am I bringing to this conversation, am I bringing an aware conscious compassionate choice full engaged relational consciousness.
18:44:10 Or am I bringing a judgmental critical blaming shaming fearful angry consciousness.
18:44:18 So some of that prep work is getting very very clear about who I'm bringing to the table, and knowing that that is going to fundamentally influence the quality of the conversation.
18:44:29 What skills do I need.
18:44:31 And do I have them. Sometimes I'm not up for any conversation sometimes I just know I don't have the capacity I don't have the skills I get to triggered.
18:44:39 So that's another thing you want to find out. Am I prepared for this. And you are all going to get much more prepared for it at the end of this evening so you are getting more prepared.
18:44:49 And then the other piece that you always want to think about when you're entering any conversation is the relational context.
18:44:56 There can be power differentials.
18:44:59 So, if you are an employee speaking to an employer that conversation is different than when you are two best friends, sitting in your garden having a cup of tea, having a discussion.
18:45:12 And that's really different than when you're the parent, talking to a child.
18:45:17 So, power relationships and power differentials are really important thing to attend to and to work with consciously, when you're entering into a conversation so those are the things that I would encourage you to get clear on before you open any conversation
18:45:32 or if you had a conversation, really go south, and you're trying to go back and sort of unpack it what happened. These are the things that I would be asking myself what was my intention, where was my attention who did I show up as what skills do I still
18:45:48 need and how did I work with the context that I have power under power with or power over and how did that go. Okay.
18:45:56 When you open a conversation scripts.
18:45:59 I'd really like to understand.
18:46:02 We don't start with I can't believe you think that why do you think that way. I can't believe you haven't been vaccinated I cannot believe you got vaccinated, are you kidding me.
18:46:11 This is not how we begin the conversation. Okay, we begin gently we begin openly. I want to find a place that we can work from together.
18:46:20 I want to find some common ground around.
18:46:24 I want to really understand how you came to believe, blah blah blah blah blah. Tell me about your journey, help me see what's important to you about XYZ.
18:46:38 I really want to have a conversation about blah blah blah.
18:46:42 All right, so you lead with an explicit intention.
18:46:46 And you arrive with a willingness to be mutually influence do not come with your demand energy and your dogma and your beliefs and your colonialism. Okay.
18:46:57 I grew up in colonial countries where you have this culture of a group of people who think that their way is superior and better and we're just going to come and give it to all those on educated people.
18:47:07 This is a consciousness that we have got to come back on the planet and we do it to one another all the time. So, arrive with a willingness to be mutually influenced.
18:47:18 All right, we're going to talk about five barriers, the five barriers to why people don't listen and the number one thing, one of them.
18:47:27 People are too comfortable. They don't want to have the conversation. They have a lot of privilege, they don't they don't need to go there, that's fine.
18:47:34 But we could talk a little bit about the status quo bias, which is our inherent bias to keep things the way they are, and resist change.
18:47:43 Now, that can show up in a lot of ways. So for example, if I have a bunch of beliefs about purple being you know a magical color, and I've always believed that purple is a magical color, and you're going to come in and tell me that it's not, I'm not going
18:47:58 to want to change my belief, I am comfortable with my belief, I have lots of evidence to wipe purple is a magical color changing that is not up for me, and I don't see why I should have to change that.
18:48:09 So if I'm very comfortable in a particular worldview and a way of being the first talk with some people is getting them to care about something.
18:48:20 And how do we get people to care about something.
18:48:23 Well, we bring ourselves. I can't tell you how often I see people bringing data research articles, experts, videos, resources.
18:48:36 This is not work. I don't know how many times unless somebody has said, Send me five articles I'll read them and we'll discuss it. But this like constant, sending people articles doesn't work but you know what does work is bringing your self yourself,
18:48:53 help them see the world through your eyes. Okay, in whatever way it's not, can I send you an article because so and so wrote something that I really believe in and I think if you heard them say it, you might believe it to don't use that strategy.
18:49:07 Use a strategy that sounds more like this.
18:49:09 I used to think that purple was a magical color as well. I love purple In fact, you know what, I had magic ones and I had crystals and I loved it and then I came across green.
18:49:22 And at first I didn't like it, and then you begin telling the story of your own journey.
18:49:28 And then I began reading such and such, and I began to question, but it made me uncomfortable. And then when I heard x y z, it got me thinking about blah blah blah.
18:49:36 And this is kind of the journey that I have been on and I just wanted you know what's it like for you to hear that. Do you resonate with any of it. Do you have you been on a similar journey.
18:49:46 Tell me about your journey to get into what you're believing you begin telling personal stories, personal stories, help people care about people, and where we're losing the plot is that we're thinking that this kind of values conversation is actually
18:49:59 about just getting the facts right and it isn't that's not where we begin.
18:50:11 If you want people to examine a question something they need a reason to care. And this is where your relationship with them is the ground that you begin with.
18:50:23 If they care about you.
18:50:26 And they trust you.
18:50:28 And they like you.
18:50:31 They're more likely to at least entertain something.
18:50:34 If they don't care about you. And they don't like you, and they don't feel safe with you. That will just be more evidence to them, of why your position is wrong.
18:50:45 Okay.
18:50:48 So, if you want people to wake up to something. Make waking up a pleasant experience, that's the takeaway for this one, make it a pleasant experience make it woman friendly.
18:50:59 Next thing. The next thing you're going to discover is that people have a lot of ego protection.
18:51:04 When it comes to vaccines Bokova or social distancing or mosques, or a slew of other things we could be talking about. It is not about those strategies.
18:51:15 It is about what those strategies mean about who the person is.
18:51:21 We are identified with our positions, our identities are tied up in it. So when you go off to the strategy.
18:51:31 You're actually for many people going off to me.
18:51:35 It's not intellectual it feels very personal to people. And we've got to get skillful around what feels personal. And when you tell somebody that they're wrong or that they're ignorant, or that they read sources that should be discredited.
18:51:50 You are telling them that you're discrediting them that's how most people are hearing it. And what you're going to get is resistance, so don't do that.
18:51:59 When you bring criticism superiority condescension, you're just going to get more resistance.
18:52:05 So, you need to get good at helping people save face.
18:52:11 You need to get good at seeing people as unique humans and not through a stereotype by putting them into a group. And then, fighting your battle with a whole group and theme through this one human.
18:52:25 Okay.
18:52:26 One of the ways you do that is you ask about their story and then you tell them their story back in their own words.
18:52:34 It's not enough. That's 20 minutes right there. I'm going to go a little bit longer. It's not enough to simply say, Okay, I understand. Let me tell you my story.
18:52:45 They need to hear their story coming out of your mouth for it to actually sink in and for them to believe you.
18:52:52 Also you focus on feelings and needs and wishes.
18:52:55 Always listen first, we're going to speed up here.
18:52:59 And you're going to listen strategically What are they feeling, what are they meeting, you're going to develop your feeling and needs literacy.
18:53:08 You joined through core values, and you can read this slide later because it's getting repetitive, and then you flip the things that they're saying so when you're in conversation and someone says well you know what you're ignorant and stupid.
18:53:17 You're not going to hear an attack, you're not going to be offended. You're going to hear that, as data for you about what they value.
18:53:26 What they're valuing information, intelligence and deep thinking.
18:53:31 So the next time somebody says to you well you know what your position is completely ignorant and stupid and I can't believe you even believe those people.
18:53:37 You are going to flip it in your mind and you're going to say, Okay, got it. So it sounds like the thing that is really important to you, is that we're having an intelligent and social conversation about this with really good data that we can both trust
18:53:48 is that right.
18:53:51 And you're going to use that to stay in connection. And when they say well you're just a sheep I can't believe that you would even belong to a group like that I can't believe that you would even think like the mainstream blah blah blah blah blah.
18:54:00 You're going to look for the underlying values and you're going to say okay got it so the thing that is really important to you.
18:54:07 Is that you, you really value some independent thinking, and you really want to trust that we've collectively been examining these ideas and individually waiting from all kinds of assumptions that might not be true, am I getting that right.
18:54:21 That's how you're going to do that. Okay, you're going to flip your a killer.
18:54:24 Okay, whether you're going to kill us by giving us vaccines or you're going to kill us by not taking the vaccine. I've heard this on both sides. And you're going to flip it to the underlying value.
18:54:34 Uh huh. The thing that's really good you upset and angry and fearful and helpless and worried, is that you care about life and you're really wanting to preserve health and well being in our community.
18:54:45 And I would venture to say that any of the values that you pull out, you'll be able to join them on with a second sentence that says I do too.
18:54:55 This is a place that we agree.
18:54:58 Okay. And this is where you begin establishing common ground. So flipping it is one of these skills you're going to work, common ground. Here's some scripts, you can grab those later I won't read them all right now.
18:55:10 And if it gets really heated you can reveal impact. You don't say to people, you're so disrespectful I can't talk to you if you're going to speak like this to behave like this.
18:55:18 Stop it. We don't do that normal criticism no more judgment reveal the impact it's having.
18:55:23 When you start speaking loudly. I get stressed, and it's harder for me to listen or to take anything in, could we take a minute I it's important for me to hear what you're saying could be slow it down so that I can take it anymore.
18:55:37 Could we slow it down so that I can take it in Well, that is going to have a very different impact than when you give people constructive feedback on their wrongness.
18:55:44 All right.
18:55:45 Third barrier is team loyalty.
18:55:48 They belong to a team.
18:55:50 If you go off to the team, they're going to get loyal and they're going to defend it and you're going to be on the wrong team. And the moment you're on the wrong team, you have no credibility.
18:56:00 So if you're working with Team loyalty, as an issue. This is confirmation bias again by the way we trust information from people on our team that we missed trusted on the other side.
18:56:11 And we dehumanize others and shape tape echo chambers. So this is what we do. You need to help yourself and others widen the team.
18:56:20 So you start looking for a way in which you're actually on the same team. So if one of you is anti backs. One of you is products. These are opposite teams.
18:56:31 But maybe both of you are mothers, or maybe both of you are Americans, or maybe both of you are soccer players, or maybe both of you are working in the healthcare industry, you find the team that you are both on you find a way to join weather is loyalty
18:56:52 to a particular team that you are on and you find a way to join them in humanity. Okay.
18:56:59 Also, you start increasing your own identity factors to get a little bit bigger than the small bubbles and you You brought in that that I'm not here to be on the side of, you know, whatever it is that's, that's, you know, I'm on the side of kangaroo lovers.
18:57:14 I'm actually on the side of animal and plod foot flora and fauna lovers, not just kangaroos, but all plants and animals, so you've got to widen your own team loyalty that bubble from people like me to humanity on on the planet, and that's developmental
18:57:35 work for each of us.
18:57:37 Practice telling the story from the opposite sides point of view, redraw team lines I've talked about that. And then the other piece that can be helpful with Team loyalty is finding a nonhuman enemy.
18:57:47 One of our biggest tasks is getting people to stop turning on each other.
18:57:52 We need to be joining together to actually solve problems. So the nonhuman enemy is ignorance. We both are having a hard time with how much misinformation and ignorance there is that's where the problem is.
18:58:04 It's not you and me.
18:58:06 It's the fact that it's hard to know what where we get good information let's solve that problem together.
18:58:12 Okay, so you switch it so that a nonhuman enemy and you get the people on the same side.
18:58:18 Okay.
18:58:20 Asked Questions. This is about getting to know their team story you can do that. What do we do with misinformation, when somebody is in a conversation with you and they say some outrageous thing and the first thing you want to say is Oh my god that's
18:58:31 so true you don't believe that to you.
18:58:33 This is not going to get you very far.
18:58:35 Right. So, with misinformation, you educate without belittling them. Do not come with scorn, do not come with superiority, do not come with condescension won't work.
18:58:49 Do not come with authority and expertise, join and shared humanity.
18:58:55 Okay, I get it. So this is what you're believing. Haha, I used to think that or I've heard that before. What do you think about blah blah blah blah blah, you empathize with the underlying fears and emotions, it sounds like you're really afraid of blah
18:59:10 blah, these are the things are really valuing, what do you think about x y z.
18:59:15 blah, these are the things you're really valuing, what do you think about XYZ resist the urge to win, tell stories. Okay, help people save face. Here's some scripts for that which you can also read later point out contradictions and that sounds like this.
18:59:27 Okay wait I'm confused. On the one hand, it sounds like you're saying blah blah blah blah blah.
18:59:33 But you're also saying XYZ healthy bring those two things together.
18:59:39 So you ask questions in a way that helps somebody think through an issue more themselves, you don't do all that work for them. Okay.
18:59:51 Final barrier is a worldview barrier.
18:59:54 I want you to remember that these, these issues vaccines are not health care issues whatever political charged issue.
19:00:01 This has to do with a person's entire world view.
19:00:07 It is not a conversation about whether to get a vaccine or not get a vaccine that action or to wear a mask or not wear a mask that action has come to symbolize something to people about who they are, about what they believe in the world about what they
19:00:27 stand for about what they want to fight for above what they hold a sacred.
19:00:32 And until you make room to understand that really deeply in a way that is not rejecting of them, as humans, until we do that worldview will not change.
19:00:46 And worldview takes a long time to change, and there's got to be really good reasons for it to change.
19:00:54 So whatever conversation you're in, you're always going to end with a question, you don't want people to have the experience of being dumped on lectured at monologues to convinced persuaded sold.
19:01:08 We don't like that.
19:01:10 It sounds like blah blah blah blah blah. Is that true.
19:01:15 It seems like you're saying, x y z, am I getting that right.
19:01:19 If I'm hearing you correctly you believe blah blah blah blah blah and this is important to you. Am I missing anything.
19:01:26 What concerns me about this, this is what you get to talk about your own, you know I get what you're saying.
19:01:32 Here's what concerns me about it. Blah blah blah blah blah. How does that sound to you.
19:01:37 Summary us You said this, you said this, you said this you value this It sounds like you're feeling this this is important to to you. Is there anything you're changing how I summarize that these are the ways that we begin building bridges and fostering
19:01:52 a different kind of dialogue, in which the people, matter.
19:01:58 And the other thing to remember in these conversations, is that we are just planting seeds.
19:02:04 And we are making small asks you are not asking somebody to give up their entire sense of identity, the team that they belong to the worldview that they hold, because you brought in a scientific article or you brought in, you know, an alternative medicine
19:02:19 perspective, that is superior to what it is that they're buying into, you're not going to get very far with that. So it's a long term relationship over time.
19:02:30 You're both willing to be influenced and you are thinking together. And we're making the problem the problem. We're not making the person, the problem in these conversations.
19:02:41 When you end the conversations you want to come with what is one small thing that this person could do within their own worldview, not in your worldview that you would see as a step forward.
19:02:53 And you make a small ask, you're not asking them to change their stones you're not asking them to completely come your way, but maybe you're asking for continued conversation.
19:03:03 Maybe you're asking them to evaluate an article with you and read it with you and give you their insights into it and what doesn't resonate and why that is.
19:03:11 Maybe you're you know you're asking them to show you where they see the common ground between the two of you, and you begin building from that. But you ask for something small and practical.
19:03:24 And I want you to remember that you are unlikely to get the satisfaction of hearing that you're right. So you give that up.
19:03:31 It's not about the mind.
19:03:33 People will go home, they will sleep on things, they will wake up later and they will have insights when you are not around.
19:03:40 That invisible shifts are happening all the time.
19:03:43 And when they go home, your central job is making sure that they go home they leave the conversation with you, feeling inspired feeling seen feeling heard feeling open feeling less defensive feeling curious, thinking.
19:04:04 Hmm.
19:04:04 that was a little different than what I was expecting.
19:04:06 And if you can achieve that with every interaction, you will be making a change. Okay so that is where I want to end foot that.
19:04:17 Take a minute.
19:04:19 Jot down.
19:04:21 What is coming up for you in this moment.
19:04:25 What is coming up for you around the subject of vaccines, where do you stand on vaccines in this moment, and get on your soapbox for a moment and vent on paper.
19:04:36 What should people be doing. What do you wish were easier. How do you wish everybody would different.
19:04:43 This would this whole thing would be so much better if only people would want to take a couple of minutes and reflect
19:04:57 a little bit of self connection.
19:05:47 All right.
19:05:49 I know that's not a lot of time, sorry.
19:05:53 What I want to do is move you into a small group experience, and I'm going to explain how it's going to go, you have a worksheet.
19:06:03 On this you have all the instructions they were emailed to you so you do have a copy of the instructions with you.
19:06:10 But what you're going to do in the moment, is go back to the people that you talked to at the beginning so you already know them, and I moved to one person because there was a group of five so I didn't move one person so that we have mostly groups of
19:06:23 fours and threes. Okay, there are some threes and there are some false.
19:06:28 So, and you might have some observers there may be somebody in your room who just says look i'd like to observe but I am not up for participating. so just work with it please if that happens, your first task when you get into your room is to assign people,
19:06:41 ABC and D. If you're three people you'll be a, b and c, skip the second task is to choose a timekeeper because we're going to do a very structured activity and you need to have somebody walking you through the timing of it.
19:07:12 So whoever has a smartphone or a little timer handy, who can help keep time, you're going to decide who that is, there's going to be two stages and stage one person, a will talk for three minutes about where you are at with the whole vaccine conversation.
19:07:19 And you can share as much or as little as you like, but I'm going to invite you to use the space to just vent. What is frustrating what brings fear what brings on your Where do you get self righteous what's coming up for you.
19:07:34 What's challenging What do you wish for any of these what is painful for you what deep longings do you have about the issue, whatever you like you get three minutes to express yourself freely.
19:07:48 While you're doing that, posting be is paying attention to what you're saying and what you're doing.
19:07:57 Person see is paying attention to all of the feelings that are alive for you and post them see is looking for all the feelings so if you need a feeling sheet you have those what all of the feelings that this person is having and person D is listening
19:08:13 for the needs that are underneath the feelings and there's a list of universal human needs in your handouts and I would recommend you use them they look like this.
19:08:25 So universal human needs are all of the intrinsic motivators that underlie everything that we do.
19:08:33 And they include things like self protection. Hope, nurturing support competence, self awareness, empathy, forgiveness. These are all things that human beings around the world, any age group need.
19:08:50 And you're going to be listening to the deep needs that are alive for people.
19:08:55 If you are a group of three.
19:08:58 You can choose to either do B and C together, or C and D together and that'll just be up to you so somebody can do the B and C as one person or you can do C and D as one person.
19:09:10 As you wish. Does that make sense so far. Any questions on this piece.
19:09:15 I'm going to do a demo in a moment. Okay.
19:09:19 So three minutes, and three people are just listening stage to post in a just listens posts and be gets one minute to share what they heard and noticed.
19:09:38 I heard you say this I heard you say this I noticed you did this, I noticed you smiled when you spoke about blah blah blah. I heard you say that you think that purple absolutely is magical and anybody who doesn't like the color purple should be decapitated
19:09:47 I heard you say whatever it is you're just reporting back what they said. And you're reporting back what you saw them doing observations person see for a minute, you're going to get, you're going to reflect back the feelings that you heard I was wondering
19:10:03 I was wondering if there was some grief or loss coming up for you, and wondering if there was some, you're going to just catalog the feelings that were in the space.
19:10:23 Post Sunday. You're going to look for universal human needs and you're going to say, I wonder if the things that were really important to us. He was speaking had to do with freedom of choice had to do with social responsibility, had to do with, you know,
19:10:34 awareness of the whole, and you can again use the universal human needs sheet and choose words from here to really get at the needs and the values. If you're three, you can divide it into a minute and a half and a minute and a half, and just figure out
19:10:51 how you want to do that piece that's how you can adjust the exercise. So Eric, would you mind for a second just doing a demo with me so we can just give people an experience where are you, Eric.
19:11:04 Your know Hi, I'm here.
19:11:04 Hey, and I'll set a timer for 30 minutes and give you 30 minutes. And I'll give you a 15 second warning design. Okay.
19:11:11 Yeah, I'm just gonna I'll talk to 30 seconds and then do you want to just model the three things.
19:11:18 Okay. All right, so I will talk for 30 seconds. Does anybody have a particular topic you would like me to talk about facilities, seconds, be able to broccoli.
19:11:30 The, I think I'm going to talk about the fact that my 18 year old decided to get a tattoo on Sunday.
19:11:37 And I as a, as a mother had begged my darling child to please wait until you're 25 before you get a tattoo because I know so many people who regret it later and I you know I fully support you doing whatever you want to do with your body but I really have
19:11:52 some strong feelings that you don't get a tattoo until you're really really suddenly can we have this agreement. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. And then on Sunday night, she came home and she said oh just FYI, I got a little text before I get home,
19:12:05 I go to touch you today and I'm really really excited and my heart dropped. And I felt angry. And then I felt guilty for being angry. And then I quickly felt like I had to get into a place of compassion, and then I'm like okay but she's old enough she's
19:12:19 an adult she gets to do what she wants.
19:12:22 There you go. That was my moment.
19:12:26 So that's my talking. Okay, my little soapbox on skillfully, and now Eric's gonna demo person be so sharing what you noticed what might some of that.
19:12:39 I notice you started by saying that, yes, you would she could do what she had some freedom.
19:12:50 Maybe and, and then she texted you and I saw your hands start to move in and, and, and then you said that your heart started saying and you said that you wanted to support her, and you want to get into a place of compassion, and before she got home, or
19:13:09 before you talk to her next. I love that.
19:13:12 I love that.
19:13:13 That's lovely.
19:13:15 Great.
19:13:18 feelings.
19:13:18 So I'm guessing there was some surprise or shock in there.
19:13:26 And
19:13:29 you were really wanting to support her and staying connection as well those are the needs so that would still wanting to stay in connection more than anything.
19:13:41 And, and, yeah, saying connection and still so keep that connection going and support dialogue. Yeah.
19:13:49 My guest third person be done. That was the, that was the end.
19:13:54 That was the end right.
19:13:58 Yes. Yeah. Good. Okay. That's beautiful.
19:14:02 So I can nod I can shake but we're not going to have a long discussion about it we're not going to go into like you know what you should do and this happened to me when I'm going to do that, then we're just going to switch.
19:14:13 Person A goes to B B goes to cc goes to DD goes to say, three minutes, you get a chance to express, and then you're listening in a different role.
19:14:23 You're randomly assigned, you may have people who all four of you may have exactly the same opinions and the same worldview, you may have four completely different worldviews and different experiences.
19:14:35 You may feel like you're the only one with a particular point of view, the structure of the exercise is designed to give you an opportunity to express yourself and to have your point of view mirrored back to you, when Eric told me back the pieces of what
19:14:52 I had said I could feel my nervous system settling a little bit, because I could see myself, I could actually contact myself in a new way, when he said it back.
19:15:03 And as he was reflecting feelings. It helped me metabolize another layer of what is it that I'm feeling and what is it that I'm needing.
19:15:12 And it actually increased my own awareness and consciousness of what's happening for me.
19:15:19 And the more that I do that the more I'm going to live the more I have that experience the more I'm going to be like, Oh, it's kind of a safe person to talk to, I wonder what he thinks.
19:15:29 I wonder where he stands and this is the shift that we're wanting to nurture in people is an openness to be influenced and I'd like you to get an experience of that.
19:15:40 So, you may or may not have that experience you may find it absolutely terrible, but it's structured and safe is everybody willing to do this or know any questions about the activity.
19:15:54 Okay.
19:15:55 Yes.
19:15:58 I don't have my glasses on. Yes, Alice, go ahead.
19:16:00 The last part where you said the sort of.
19:16:05 I don't know what what you call that part. Are we taking a time during this exercise for that for each person to do that. No, we're going to do that as a large group.
19:16:16 So you're going to go three minutes speaking, three minutes reflecting switch three minutes, speaking three minutes reflecting switch three minutes, three minutes.
19:16:24 Now for the groups of three you're going to get done a little earlier. And so you can have a little discussion and then you'll be back. Okay, now I'm only going to give you 25 minutes so you're going to have to time this very tightly, very tightly and
19:16:37 do your best to
19:41:29 Melvin Welcome back.
19:41:32 Hello, here comes everybody, they have another 15 seconds to come back.
19:41:39 All right, so people are arriving back from breakout session,
19:41:46 give everyone a second to to get here.
19:41:52 Okay, welcome, welcome.
19:41:55 Let's just give all people. There we go. Here we are. Everybody is back.
19:42:03 Alright, welcome.
19:42:06 I would like to hear from three people.
19:42:11 What did you learn what happened.
19:42:15 insights learnings.
19:42:18 One moment let me find my little prompts. I just want you to share some learnings and ask any questions, anything any place you're getting stuck ANYTHING You Want some help with Susan, why don't you start.
19:42:35 I just want to say that I think that we have three people in the group, and we all agreed it felt so good to just say how what we thought week our argument or our views don't without thinking of having to persuade anybody, just be able to say it and say
19:42:57 it without feeling compensated for or contagious.
19:43:04 Isn't it lovely and different experience when we get the opportunity to express something without bracing yourself against what might come back when you have some trust that you're just going to be received and heard as a stage that is a very needed experience
19:43:22 in our culture, a lot of people are really needed really needing to be seen and heard and validated and known people need to be treated in a way that leaves them remembering that they matter.
19:43:39 And so much of our discourse is about trying to dismiss and devalue people which is incredibly painful thank you for naming that some, Some.
19:43:50 And then Dimitri, off to say thank you for this exercise it was wonderful to be received in a way that felt fully heard.
19:43:59 I'm so delighted to hear that. Yeah, really appreciated the each of the ABC and D. The actual task assignment.
19:44:10 So that we're focusing. Exactly. Yeah, reflection in the feelings and needs guesses and it's really one very more things. Oh, you're so welcome. You're so welcome I'm delighted that that felt good.
19:44:23 Being in conversations that feel good, is one of the main goals here. Right. That's how we stay engaged if our conversations are painful, we will disengage Dimitri,
19:44:39 I, I also enjoyed this this exercise, as I agree feels great to just be heard, not expect, you know, argument counter arguments. Here the feelings and needs.
19:44:52 And I understand we don't have a lot of time this is kind of a artificial workshop situation. It's coming back to real time experiences that I've had, talking to people.
19:45:03 I have this underlying fear that, and it actually often happens that when I try to empathize with others.
19:45:13 Give them back with the said they take that as agreement.
19:45:18 Yes, and they just get reinforced a position. Oh yeah, okay, I'll let you hearing me um let you and they have to something else and I don't get to say actually what I believe.
19:45:28 Okay. What do you suggest, asking for it directly or building the bridge into the conversation.
19:45:37 And it might sound something like this.
19:45:41 You could set you could set it up proactively. I really want to have a conversation, in which I fully understand your position and I get a chance to tell you a little bit about mine, but I'd really like to hear you first.
19:45:53 So you can set the expectation of like that so that there's an awareness that there's two.
19:45:59 If that doesn't happen, you can do the empathizing, right, which is just a stage it's not the stage we want to stall out at, but you can do the empathizing and then you can say something like, you know, do you feel like I'm getting that right and they
19:46:12 go Yeah absolutely. Okay, great.
19:46:15 Are you feeling ready to hear a little bit about what's coming up in me or not yet, because it gives people a cue that I'm also wanting to speak and it also gives them an opportunity to consent or not consent or check in with themselves you know have
19:46:32 you. Do you feel like I get your point of view enough for me to tell you a little bit about where I think we're in agreement and what it is that I'm seeing differently.
19:46:41 Do you have some bandwidth to hear some of that.
19:46:44 And then you will have the experience of, you'll get a yes or no, they may or may not be.
19:46:50 And let's say they say no, no I you know I don't think we need to then I could even if I wanted to push a little bit more I could say, Okay, I just want to say like, I think I understand.
19:47:02 I think I understand where you're coming from. And there are some things that I really disagree with you on and that I see differently and at some point, I'd love to have more conversations about that.
19:47:21 Are you willing to set up another time or you know maybe we can come back to it another time. Because you're building the expectation and the frame that this say backwards and forwards dialogue, but you don't have to demand that everything happened in
19:47:27 one conversation.
19:47:28 How's that landing Dimitri as some ways of building some more of that in,
19:47:36 but also good suggestions.
19:47:39 It really depends on situation but oftentimes there is no second chance. It's like, essentially the occasion is gone, you move on to something else. So then I'm going to talk to this person for a while.
19:47:54 Yeah, yeah. And so then in those moments are you feeling some regret that you weren't advocating more for an ulterior point of view or for your own point of view is that you've got a longing for there to be more balanced in the little bit of time that
19:48:08 you already had together is that it.
19:48:11 Well, I just want to be understood.
19:48:14 Heard for what I really believe in, not what it seems like because I empathize with them.
19:48:20 Yeah, because I have empathy is not agreement, it say that, that's beautiful the way you just said it say that, you know, it's really important to me that I find a way to emphasize with and at least understand or reflect your position.
19:48:36 And I really want to express my point of view, do, and I really just want to be clear that in understanding it, it doesn't mean that I agree with it.
19:48:44 You can say that very directly, even if they're not open to hearing your you know your alternative point of view or where you're coming from some people are some people are not.
19:48:55 But you get to least state with integrity the truth for you. That please don't mistake at my listening and trying to understand you as my agreeing with you.
19:49:08 Sometimes that, you know, even just that nugget will feel a little bit better.
19:49:14 Pause that landing.
19:49:16 Great.
19:49:17 Yeah, and it's it's like, people have so much feelings about it that feel like I can listen and listen and empathize for hours. Yeah, so, and it feels great, but it's not to fill their bucket.
19:49:32 One of the things that I would say is only amplifies, or listen to their story for as long as you are willing to some of us feel like we're doing time sometimes it's like okay I'm going to empathize and empathize and it doesn't spend hours and hours and
19:49:49 hours it's all about you and all about you and all but there's a point where I began feeling resentful.
19:49:55 And there's a point where I became going with this is like completely unbalanced What about me and this is just, I don't want to be enabling you monologue and I just received I'm not a receptacle for all of your words right i mean like, sometimes you'll
19:50:06 get a cue and follow that impulse because that's an eight of yours that's wisdom of yours coming up in the conversation, prompting you to bring more balance and dialogue.
19:50:20 So, you know, maybe I know you come to my Wednesday morning class on Wednesday mornings I have a free drop in q amp a let's play a little bit more with this in a role play and one of the upcoming Wednesdays, and maybe we can do a little bit more depth
19:50:31 in some of the skill fullness, all of you on this call always welcome. By the way, on the Wednesday morning calls they're free, and we do a lot of conversation unpacking Would that be okay Dimitri, can I sort of table this full.
19:50:43 Yeah, that's searching for a while.
19:50:46 Yeah, it's great question. I'm so glad you brought it up. Thank you.
19:50:55 Yeah. Oh, need my glasses, Jessica Hi. Hi, um, that was really wonderful and I guess I'm just wanted to say I'm feeling a little sad because we ran out of time and didn't get to hear one person.
19:51:03 And I'm wondering if there's any way of maybe if people in our group wish to to stay on at the end and reform our group and finish.
19:51:12 Yes, if when we end that group would like to continue or any groups would like to go back into a small group and and have a bit more conversation before you drop off you're more than welcome I'll open the groups at the end of the call and we can see if
19:51:24 there's interest. Yeah.
19:51:26 Does that help.
19:51:27 Sure, I mean if people want to that's great and if they don't, that's fine, thank you. Okay, thank you for the request I love that. Thank you.
19:51:35 What else what else is up for people. Questions, comments.
19:51:41 How are you,
19:51:48 yes nation, am I saying your name right and then Harry.
19:51:55 Is it. Yes, yes. Can you hear me okay. Yes, yes. Okay, thank you yes new Shin just perfect. Thank you so much. I really great, but I just want to express my gratitude to just for this safe space and, you know, for this opportunity to be able to, to be
19:52:15 able to just be here, and just just share.
19:52:22 And I was really scared. At the beginning when I was in that conversation. I was scared to just express my position and when I'm I come from and to just as it was the very first time I would just be the blonde and just add, we had about you know what
19:52:39 decision has been and and then only within the community that NBC community within this teaching that, you know, I, you know, feel safe to be able to express yourself without feeling like you're going to be attacked.
19:52:55 And then you just what's going to come at you as you were saying and I had just trust that the people that did support me and then people who did that.
19:53:05 They were that they wanted to listen and that's what exactly my experience was and I just want to thank my two for that, and thank you for providing this opportunity.
19:53:19 Ideally, ideally, you know, truly appreciate that. Thank you. I am so delighted to hear that. I'm so delighted to hear that and I'm going to just put that back on all of the people who are in the small groups you create that experience by being willing
19:53:33 to give it a go. And by being to work through the structured activity and find out what it was like for you so I'm really grateful to all of you for playing with me here like that tonight and there's some Thank you It means a lot to me to hear the impact
19:53:48 that things are having people.
19:53:50 Yeah, thank you.
19:53:52 Harry and then Valerie and then I'm going to make some closing comments and then I'm gonna open the small breakout rooms for anybody who wants to continue conversation.
19:54:01 One of the things I like to add in our group.
19:54:05 Boy feedback.
19:54:07 Feedback.
19:54:09 Okay, mean that we, we had similar positions.
19:54:15 And it occurred to me afterwards it was so nice to talk to people with similar positions where we did not, then put ourselves as well this is us. That's them and those people out there.
19:54:28 And each one of us talked about what was important to us and it was a very intimate experience against, to really hear what was true.
19:54:38 And something very different than maybe I might have elsewhere.
19:54:43 Lovely.
19:54:45 I'm so happy to hear that. Thank you.
19:54:46 Thanks, Harry.
19:54:48 Valerie.
19:54:50 I, something you said during the informative part, I don't know the teaching that that resonated for me was this idea of having some pre planning and pre shot.
19:55:12 About and intentions going into the conversation.
19:55:17 I'm dealing with something that's not vaccine related but into my intention to change the person just completely
19:55:27 makes the conversation that much more difficult. Right. And if I, if my intention is to go in with curiosity, and to hold the humanity at the center point.
19:55:39 It just softens the whole experience from the get go.
19:55:45 Thanks again for restating that.
19:55:48 Thank you for highlighting here, thank you thank you for highlighting that.
19:55:53 So I want to, there are a couple of questions that have come through the chat that I'd like to address, just very brief, only because we don't have a lot of time.
19:56:02 One of them is when I put the world view slide up, and I said you know on the left there tends to be certain values that get prioritize on the right there get tend to be other values to get prioritized I don't have to remember that.
19:56:13 And there's a concern that that might reinforce stereotypes Yes, very valid concern. I'm really glad that you brought that up. The point that I'm trying to make so let me make it a little bit more skillfully then perhaps it seemed on the slide is that
19:56:28 when you're speaking to somebody, you want to get into their values so you know and nonviolent communication we have this sort of List of universal human needs.
19:56:39 And we think of them as these are the needs that everybody has that underlie the strategies that they choose to go to bat for.
19:56:48 But depending upon your let's let's take ages for a moment, depending on your stage of development. When you are under five, the needs that you're really prioritizing have to do with basic trust and have to do with safety and security and little children
19:57:05 who are under five are all about safety, security, trust, and then they in elementary school, it becomes about mastery and competence, they're not really caring about meaning and purpose and existential questions.
19:57:18 That's not the need that you're going to talk to them about because it's not their worldview.
19:57:25 And so when I put up left and right that that just came from a little bit of research in terms of when we, when we paint in really broad strokes, which is problematic so I'm glad this person brought it up.
19:57:38 What you'll find is that people who swing a little more left tend to want to talk about compassion or social justice or nurturing caring about people like these are the needs that they are prioritizing.
19:57:52 And on the right and we could, you know, you could get rid of left or right let's get rid of left or right for a moment. Let's just talk about human beings, the person in front of you is the thing that's really important to them has to do with social
19:58:06 order and agreements and caring for the whole, then you want to join them in those needs that they are prioritizing and have the conversation, based on what they're prioritizing if you wanted to bridge, you can bring your things and if they're different,
19:58:22 as the dialogue builds, but it's really more about understanding how to get into somebody else's perspective, not vilifying either one. So really, that was the point that I was trying to make and perhaps not quite so skillfully and I see that there are
19:58:39 a couple more questions and I, I will try and address them in writing on the, on the replay. inch only because we're running out of time this evening.
19:58:49 So, what would you say is the importance of having these conversations just avoiding the topic. Well, here's what I will say about that. If we avoid the subject, we, we lose influence, and we lose the opportunity to build our own capacity and to connect
19:59:06 with people that we care about.
19:59:07 So at the same time. What I want to leave you with is this idea that you are in full choice. You decide which conversations, you want to engage with and with which people who matters to you, where does it matter to you.
19:59:23 And ultimately, for me, I don't know about all of you because I'm meeting a lot of you for the first time.
19:59:28 But for me, this is a journey, about showing up with integrity, and in alignment with my wanting to use my life energy to help co create the kind of world that I want to live in.
19:59:42 and I have the conversations because it's in alignment with the work that I want to be doing on the planet. You get to decide for yourself, which conversations you want to engage in which ones you don't, and what your life purposes, and how it doesn't
19:59:57 doesn't align with yours but generally speaking, people who tend to be attracted to workshops like this, do feel some drive to somehow have a positive influence.
20:00:10 So, there are a couple slides you can read in the slide deck but here's what I would really just like to invite you to Wednesday mornings is a free call.
20:00:31 the link, you know through my website, you can get my weekly newsletter, you can find me on YouTube you can find me on Facebook, I do Facebook Lives the first Friday of every month.
20:00:34 And for those of you who are in the membership if you didn't hear this year, our theme in September is overcoming defensiveness. And if anybody would like to join the membership You're welcome.
20:00:43 There are eight calls a month.
20:00:45 And we do a deep dive into a topic, where we do some teaching we're going to talk about how to overcome defensiveness we'll do some role playing we'll do some scripting.
20:00:57 We'll do a lot of practice and then we have an integration week, so you can check out the membership if this is interesting to you. And if you want this material, you got like 25 minutes of the material, but if you'd like the full six hours of curriculum,
20:01:09 you can sign up for human one on one, that course will give you an introduction to nonviolent communication neuroscience whole personal growth curriculum, you can sign up for that anytime it's self paced, and I want to leave you with some words of inspiration.
20:01:25 These conversations are not easy, but they are absolutely worth it.
20:01:29 Dialogue is hard work, diplomacy is difficult, and you will not see immediate results, but I'd like you if you're inspired to keep doing it anyway.
20:01:40 You'll make mistakes, you're going to learn about your limits, you're going to build your capacity, your emotional strength is going to get stronger, life will be more fun you will be joining us when people freak out around you instead of getting scared.
20:01:53 Keep going.
20:01:54 Justin Lee who wrote a really fabulous book that I highly recommend By the way, it's walking across the divide and you can find him on YouTube. He's very funny and very lovely.
20:02:05 He says that any dialogue is just better than no attempt at all. It's relational and I am all about the relationships and Marshall Rosenberg, one of my very favorite teachers used to say anything worth doing is worth doing badly.
20:02:20 So go out there, do these conversations, grab some new skills do it badly, put on a growth mindset, tell yourself that you know it's worth doing so I'm just going to go and do it better.
20:02:33 So, new co Creative Conversations can start with you. And I do hope that you join me in taking the next step, this replay will be available on the replay page.
20:02:45 They to this week hopefully tomorrow maybe Thursday. And you can look for an email with a link to a survey I would love some feedback on what you would like.
20:02:55 Next, whether you would like follow up sessions on us, and how you might improve it I am learning all the time about how it's better needs and so if you have ideas, please take some time and fill out that survey and let me know.
20:03:09 So, I will see a bunch of you tomorrow morning on the Wednesday morning for you call I'll see another bunch of you in the membership call in the afternoon, everybody else that I meeting for the first time Welcome, it is a delight to meet you Thank you
20:03:20 for joining me here this evening.
20:03:22 If you'd like to unmute and say goodbye, go ahead and do that and I will go ahead and open up the breakout.
20:03:35 I always like to. Okay.
20:03:39 Thank you.
20:03:39 Thank you, night everybody. Bye.
20:03:41 Thank you. Good night everyone.
20:03:54 had changed my mind about something. What did you change your mind about 20. Oh just added to changing.
20:04:02 Yeah.
20:04:03 Yeah. Quite a few things I'll have to go look back on my notes. Thank you. Yeah, no more hat attitude more less, Less name calling.
20:04:16 That's a big one, I'll take it. That's a big one. I'm so delighted.